I have a lot of grass seeds. Direct sowing has been unsuccessful in previous years, so this time I’m going to sow a bunch of small plugs. They won’t be in there long, I mainly just want to get them germinated and established enough to be gently handled, then I’ll plant them out individually. Is this too shallow for that or will it be fine?
by Jacked_Shrimp
3 Comments
Yeah as long as you’re going to transplant them very early or move them to a proper plug tray to grow out.
I use 2″ deep trays and sell a tray of 50 for $40 lol, so yes but it won’t last long fully grown (maybe 3 weeks), and don’t keep it too wet.
Short answer: not deep enough alone. These are seed starter plugs. They can grow a seed for the first month, during which, they’ll need non-nutritious soil. The way professional nurseries do prairie grasses and forbs is, they start in 200’s and then when the roots are coming out of the tray, transfer the healthy plants into 5″ deep 50’s. I used these last year and grew about 400 plants this way, including Little and Big Bluestem, side oat Gramma, Purple Lovegrass and Prarie Broome. I think the 2-tier system works really well if you have the timing down.
Source: https://youtu.be/aFigh9jS5iA?si=639XbeXRLY_gmA7m
If you want to learn more, I did exactly what Pizzo Nursery does. It worked really well.
I suppose you could transfer directly to soil immediately after 200’s but the plants will be pretty juvenile.